The Tides That Bind Us [AfroFuturism]

My Old Friend

If darkness could speak, what would it say?

Zaharah had spent weeks in the dark after her accident and talking to it, at least on a subconscious level, had been her only way of keeping a shred of sanity. It never answered her, never talked back, but it listened—which was leagues better than talking—better than any person could. It listened to her directionless rambles, her morbid musings, her incessant questions.

Perhaps it listened too much. At some point close to her recovery, it felt as though she was melding with the darkness. Or it was swallowing her. 

And she had woken up, left the dark behind, and their meetings since had been fleeting. The little darkness that lied between virtual reality and reality reality faded away faster than a dream. Before she could even think to say hello, the sounds of the lab drifted in.

The steady beep of the heart monitor, muffled conversation. A pop, the hiss of air escaping, as though the metal coffin was exhaling a long breath. And she exhaled with it. A sliver of light slipped in through the crack, and the conversation swelled, offensive to her sensitive ears. After leaving Virtua everything was too bright, too loud.

Too real.

She'd asked them a million times to keep the noise down while she acclimated, but whatever they discussed was more important than her comfort. As the lid of the Virtua chamber slid away, she blinked until her vision adjusted. Her head felt as though someone replaced her brain with a cotton blob.

A Dwight shaped shadow fell over her, along with the scent of hibiscus. He fiddled with the panel on the wall, a steady stream of vapor curling from his mouth. The beeping stopped, and in its absence the noise in the other room grew. Not even the glass wall separating the chambers from the rest of the lab was enough to keep out the chatter.

Dwight whipped his head around so fast, his dreadlocks slapped him across the cheek. "Hey! Shut the fuck up!" The command was like a banger set off inside Zaharah's head, but silence followed, proving that he could be helpful and a pain in her ass at the same time.

"Up Zaharah. The Director called. She wants to see you. Now," he added when she didn't budge. "I don't have enough caffeine in me to deal with her and Cyan."

"Don't rush me. This ain't Junkanoo*." Zaharah unplugged the charging node from her right palm, and the panel along the top blinked to life with green light. From an inch below her elbow all the way to her fingers, all glossy metal and buttons that did nothing, a mimicry of a real arm with all the function and none of the warmth. Dwight said its components suggested it had more functionalities—whatever that meant—but she didn't have access to them. She closed her hand into a fist, each finger making a metallic click as it curled into her palm.

"Careful with that," Dwight said, eyeing her balled fist.

She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the chamber, the cold metal biting into her through her jeans. "You know, if I hit you with this, I could dislocate your jaw."

"If you hit me with that, you'd better kill me." He punctuated his point by blowing a cloud of vapour in her face. "Now get out of my lab."

"Yes, your Majesty," she said, but it sounded more like: eat shit and die.

The floor shocked her bare feet and blew away the grogginess clouding her mind. A row of chambers stretched out in a neat line to the other end of the room. Hers had a four—her lucky number—emblazoned on the side in the Google colours. She waltzed past the inferior numbers back to the main room, where the other engineers spoke in hushed whispers. They'd abandoned their swivel chairs in front of the monitors and stood around the projected TV on the opposite wall.